Cyrus' Paradise

My guess is that Cyrus understands Araspas’ character very well indeed, that he knows that Araspas will fall for Pantheia before Araspas does, and sends him off knowing that he will then be able to come to the rescue as Pantheia’s protector.  But demonstrating this (or even showing it plausible) had better be done ad loc, as I’ll try if I have time. 

That is fair. Arguably, his solution to Araspes’ obsession with Panthea (sending him away before he loses control completely) also shows knowledge of character.  

“I’m trying to think of a time where Xenophon shows Cyrus as a good judge of character, rather than just telling us (or having Cyrus tell his audience) that he is one … “

I think my question and comment on Cyropaedia 2.4.22 might be what you’re looking for.

I’ve been pondering what I hope will be a helpful response to your thoughtful questions about the tone of the Cyropaedia (we can pursue Pantheia and Abradatas further in another post if you like) and to Melina’s comment below, as well as David C.’s comment to this post and Sean’s post about the Cyropaedia as a novel.

Let me start with Melina’s statement below, “I also find that there is a certain ambiguity in some (if not all) of Cyrus’ virtues.” I’m pretty sure I’m in full agreement with this statement. I can’t think of a single leadership virtue, in Cyrus or anyone else, that is not to some extent problematic or ambiguous, and I think Xenophon understood this, too (see my remarks on philanthropia below). I will go even further.

(1) Pretty much every speech act that a human being engages in is ambiguous in the sense that it can be taken multiple ways. If I say, “I love my mother,” I might mean anything from “I like my mother” to “I don’t like my mother” (assuming I say, “I like my mother” in a tone of protest). I might be expressing sexual attraction to my mother and I might be revealing nothing at all about her because I just uttered that sentence to make a larger point about tone in the Cyropaedia. Moreover, the meaning of my statement could change or evolve over time, according to my age, the time of day, where in the world I am, or whether I formulate my sentiment in English, French, or Latin.  Artists and thinkers of all kinds may delight and enlighten their audiences by playing with these ambiguities.

So, probably everything we ever say has some ambiguity to it. I’m sure a mathematician or a philosopher could also explain why 2 + 2=4 is sometimes ambiguous.

(2) Nevertheless, as much as ambiguity is a feature of human communication, there is such a thing as trying to remove, minimize, or eliminate ambiguity. This happens all the time in practical situations, such as the writing of constitutions and in the passing of laws.  Hopefully the lawmakers are aware enough of the ambiguity of their language that they make it clear where the law is to be followed to the letter and the parameters open to interpretation.

We also see the attempt to eliminate ambiguity in all sorts of leadership situations.  A general does not look to “play” with the ambiguities of language when he/she sends an army into battle, and a teacher tries to make assignments as clear as possible, e.g., by assigning a paper that is 1,000 words long (without quotes from primary or secondary sources) rather than assign a page-limit, which would give the student an opportunity to play with the font and spacing. The same is true in most cases for coaches, parents, captains of ships, and CEO’s of corporations. Leaders often need to remove as much ambiguity from their language as possible and they are often successful at doing so when they are most aware of the inherent ambiguity in what they say. Moreover, leaders often use story-telling to convey their (to them unambiguous) points.

Perhaps one of the most salient (and sophistic) contexts in which we see communicators try to remove ambiguity from language is in political campaigns, where the argument is made in blunt, direct, and powerful language that “this man or woman is the best leader for the job!” See any political ad anywhere in the world.  There may be tons of literary and rhetorical devices at work in these ads, but as far as I can tell ambiguity is not one of them, unless it is to point to ambiguity in one’s opponent (“He says one thing but does another. Can we ever know what he stands for?!).

(3) Finally, not only are there sometimes thorough attempts to remove ambiguity from the language, it is possible for the receiver of the message to register ambiguity when in fact the author of the message intended none. Note this ad for Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, which was intended to present Cain as a sincere and passionate advocate for the “common man” (=Tea Party member). Nevertheless many were put off by his campaign manager, Mark Block’s, act of puffing a cigarette at the end of the ad and Cain’s own slow, creepy smile.

An even better example of what we might call seeing ambiguity (or irony) where the author intended none (and indeed tried to extricate it) might be whenever any monotheistic religious organization gathers together to insist on one canonical text as the sacred word of god. Many readers may detect ambiguity or inconsistency later, but presumably the goal was to demonstrate the importance of worshiping the one perfect, infallible god, properly understood.

Finally, and here’s where I address Sean’s question about the novel and Cyropaedia, the novels of Ayn Rand are in her own words straightforward presentations of perfected heroes and heroines, practicing capitalism, being rationally selfish, and inventing and creating all that the rest of civilization lives by. And unless Rand pulled off one of the most brilliant fake-outs in human history (way better than Andy Kaufmann), she was dead serious about her work: not only are her views pretty consistent across all of her fiction and non-fiction (sometimes it’s hard to tell where the two diverge), but she gave countless interviews saying that what her “heroes” advocated in her novels was exactly what she herself believed and believed in.  Nevertheless, I imagine more than a few of us would detect some ambiguity in the fact that Rand considered herself a true feminist (in that she believed women were as rational as men and entitled to the same “individual” rights) but that she thought a woman would never be happy as president of the United States, and she made many of her heroines undergo what I could only describe as sadomasochistic torture at the hands of the “heroes” they idolized.

Anyone who has read the works of Ayn Rand could find further places of ambiguity. But my point is that if all we had were a few novels by her, I’m quite certain that we would interpret her heroes–darkly, ironically, and pessimistically–in some of the same language that we use to interpret Xenophon’s Cyrus: “he’s too good to be true, he’s selfish, he manipulates people to his own ends, and since Xenophon is a careful, smart, and sensitive writer, there’s no way he could actually have wanted us to take his hero at face value.” Some of us would surely say, “Rand must be offering up a very seductive and compelling form of (19th century American, industrial) heroism but then must be undercutting that ideal by making us feel less than inspired by some of the behavior of the heroes themselves.” Yet, if we did this with Ayn Rand, we would be very wrong. She did want everyone to take her at face value and she thought that anyone who didn’t get on board with her vision was a huge loser or, in her terms, “a second-hander.”  Finally, to judge from the thousands of novels Rand still sells and the powerful influence her ideas exert over the Republican and Libertarian parties, many people still do take her at face value.

Where does this leave us regarding the tone of the Cyropaedia? I certainly don’t mean to draw any more parallels between Ayn Rand’s heroes and Xenophon’s hero than to say this: it is possible for an author to develop a sincere and carefully-worked out theory of character/ethics or a theory of leadership that readers nonetheless interpret ambiguously, and this ambiguity might derive from nothing more than holes in the theory that the author was not aware of, chose not to address, or sought to downplay. At the end of the day, doing, for example, what David C. suggests and asking ourselves to “supply some of the many pieces Xenophon leaves missing” might be the most interesting (=not dull) part of any any engagement with a text. Certainly if I ever taught Atlas Shrugged in a course, I would be more inclined to try to get students to think about why Rand conceived of her “ideal” characters as she did (and what she left out) rather than try to guide them in how to become the next Howard Roark or John Galt.

Now, all I have done so far is suggest a way in which reading the Cyropaedia “ambiguously” might plausibly take place, though Xenophon might have intended us to read Cyrus sincerely. What proof would I offer that I do not read him ambiguously, while continuing to agree with Melina that there is ambiguity in all of Cyrus’ virtues? Scholars who read Cyrus straightforwardly like to point out that the work is framed as a treatise on leadership: Xenophon begins the work by pointing out how hard it is to get people to follow leaders for any period of time and he offers of the example of Cyrus as a way of doing this “knowledgeably” (Cyropaedia 1.1.3). Moreover, (as in the case of Ayn Rand) we have all of Xenophon’s works and the virtues of leadership that he treats there greatly resemble Cyrus’ virtues. Xenophon’s works are full of a lot of “bad” people and “bad” leaders (Alcibiades, Tissaphernes, Artaxerxes, Menon, and to some extent Clearchus and Proxenus, among others). Cyrus does not resemble these in any obvious way and he looks more like the good leaders. Still, even if this is true, it is conceivable that Xenophon is being ambiguous or ironic everywhere.

Here’s why I don’t think that’s the case, and it derives from the fact that the leadership traits Xenophon treats are problematic and ambiguous–and I believe Xenophon knew it. Take the seemingly innocent case of philanthropia, the “love of mankind” or in Dover 1974‘s translation, “a fondness for humans” (Greek Popular Morality). What in the world does philanthropia mean for a leader, when in fact it was (seemingly) originally a virtue ascribed to gods who did things for mortals outside of a strict contractual bond (cf. Prometheus)? What would it mean for a leader to “love all humans”? Should a leader show any preference for friends, family, members of the same political party, fellow citizens, fellow countrymen–or is the leader somehow supposed to love everyone in the same way, to the same degree, all the time? How can a leader practice philanthropia (which often entails generous gift-giving) without worrying that he/she will render the followers lazy and unmotivated to campaign, or indeed so resourceful as to plot against the leader? How can a leader do good deeds for the followers without worrying about a rivalry with other good-deed doers (cf. Prometheus and Zeus)? How can a leader give away so many resources and make sure that his/her friends will remain loyal? How can a leader love his/her fellow human and avoid being duped by the mere appearance of reciprocal friendship? How can a leader spend all of his/her time caring for others without going crazy from the stress? How can a leader show a love of humanity without coming across as condescending or “holier than thou”?

I obviously don’t have the space here to show how Xenophon tackles these questions with his version of Cyrus’ philanthropia (and thus my argument is incomplete; I do intend to show this in my book), but I believe that that is what he is up to (if it’s not obvious I put a lot of thematic stock in Xenophon’s formulation of Cyrus’ nature that he was “most loving of humanity, most loving of learning, and most loving on honor,” Cyropaedia 1.2.1.). The point seems not to be to show Cyrus as an ambiguous leader but as a leader doing his best to work through, in lots of different situations, the ambiguities in all of the leadership traits.

Does he succeed? Not entirely. To continue with philanthropia, Cyrus does not love all of mankind equally. He appoints his son, Cambyses, to be heir to the Persian throne. There is no mention of Cambyses’ qualifications for this office (other than age and birth), even though we have witnessed Cyrus on many occasions appointing others to high honor on the basis of their achievements, regardless of their class or nationality. Why did he not do this with Cambyses, especially since a lot of people reading the Cyropaedia probably knew that Cambyses was a terrible king? I think the answer in this case is pretty simple: Cyrus was bound by Persian law to appoint his son and Xenophon was bound to report what obviously happened in Persian history. We may add that maybe Xenophon didn’t have a very good idea in general about how to work around the principle of hereditary leadership (he works around Cyaxares, too, by giving him no male heirs).

So, even though we might detect an ambiguity or an inconsistency here, I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Xenophon never says that Cyrus is perfect, ideal, or complete. He does say on many occasions that Cyrus is best at something and I think if Xenophon were asked why he didn’t figure everything out, he might respond by saying (I imagine fancifully):

“What’s the alternative, Plato’s Philosopher king? Well, the Philosopher king has a lot going for him in the way of intelligence and even self-restraint, justice, and courage, but my leader actually wants to lead, motivated as he is by a love of humanity and a love of being honored! As someone who’s read a lot about leadership, shared the company of many leaders, and been a leader myself, it’s the best I can do.”

I find the relationship between the two works and their receptions very interesting (but I may be in the very small group of people who finds both works entrancing). Reading the Cyropaedia through the same literary and theoretical lenses that are applied to Tristram Shandy opens up a great many possibilities for appreciating the playful literary qualities of Xenophon’s work, which don’t always jump right out at you if you’re expecting him to be dull and worthy. So one option for promoting the Cyropaedia might be its avant-garde literary character, leading into its relationship with the ancient novel.

Since the Cyropaedia is sometimes considered the first ancient novel (or at the very least a proto-novel), this interpretive dichotomy you bring up reminds me very much of the famous interpretive dichotomy that Apuleius’ Golden Ass has produced. There the discussion has centered around whether the work is, at the end of it all, a serious moralizing work of philosophy or an absurdly entertaining joke. The reason I bring this up is because Jack Winkler 1995 showed, in his groundbreaking narratological analysis (Auctor & Actor, Berkeley), that this interpretive ambiguity is built into the work itself, and that it rests with the reader to select those elements that support one version of the novel’s “meaning” over another.

Though I know of no approach to the Cyropaedia that takes a similar tack, I think it might make sense to think in these terms about this work as well. I will soon post a blog entry with my initial findings on the topic of religion and narrative authority in the work, which is part of a larger project I am working on surveying the ancient novel and its precursor(s) more generally. As you will read there if you care to, I see Xenophon’s use (or general lack thereof) of a divine “control level” as part of a move towards a character-derived system of narrative motivation, which is a better fit for his professed object in composing the work. Such a move is in fact a first step towards the kind of fiction we are far more comfortable with today. Nonetheless, as I will argue there, the natural result of such a move is that it leaves the question of who is “pulling the strings” open-ended. This opens the work up to precisely the sort of bifurcated interpretation you mention here, and thus leaves a lot more room for (and necessitates a greater degree of) creative interpretation on the part of the reader. Though a work that is open-ended in this way may still contain small hints that nudge a reader towards one interpretation over another, it is  naturally significantly more capacious for accommodating the inventiveness of its audience. And that makes it potentially far more interesting, depending on how hard the audience is willing to work, but significantly more likely to be dull to an audience that is disinclined to engage very actively with the narrative. If we want to find ways in which the Cyropaedia might be made interesting, then, we must do precisely this: find something that will motivate our students to supply some of the many pieces Xenophon leaves missing. And if that turns out to be a court intrigue, the thrill of searching for the conspiracy behind the veil of power, then at the very least such an interpretation provides an exciting way into the text, one that will likely be, for many as for you, less “dull” than the alternative.

Dear David, I read the Cyropaedia along the same lines with you. I also find that there is a certain ambiguity in some (if not all) of Cyrus’ virtues (this was also the topic of my paper in the Xenophon conference, in 2009, if you remember). Another example of manipulation is, I think, Cyrus’ dialogue with his mother Mandane. But I also think that one could perhpas distinguish “different degrees of ambiguity or darkness” (some passages seem more markedly dark than others), and this explains, of course, the various interpretative possibilities that open up for the Cyropaedia and that render it less dull.

Your questions are good ones. I think your question about the alternative here is a particularly good way of defending Cyrus, as I can’t name a better alternative for dealing with Cyaxares, and agree with you that there are plenty of obviously less pleasant alternatives. Outmaneuvering and even manipulation seem rather justifiable motives when dealing with inferior superiors. But can the same be said of Cyrus’ treatment of Abradatas and Pantheia, say?Cyrus’ motives, more generally speaking, are a bit of a mystery to me. His philanthropia is noted on numerous occasions, but it isn’t always clear to me just who Cyrus is trying to benefit–especially as time goes on. He begins having to help the Persians and Medes fight off an attack, which is clearly justified  (there’s obviously no reason to think the Assyrians would be better rulers), but the benefits of his empire in the longer run aren’t nearly as clear to me. My guess is that Xenophon is indeed fond of the early Persia he sketches at the beginning of the work–but the egalitarian values of that society are undermined by Cyrus and his meritocarcy, and of course there’s 8.8 to worry about in the longer term. Neither is Cyrus, though, some megalomaniac would-be god-king. He’s not interested in honor for the sake of honor, I suspect we agree–he rather seems to think that honor and privilege are tools he can use in the same way he uses other resources.If the Cyropaedia is a work showing not only how to found an empire but why would shouldn’t found an empire–a very debatable point, I grant you, and one where contemporary distaste for imperialism is bound to (mis)shape our interpretations–it is a sort of a fortiori proof: if imperialism is bad even under as great a leader as Cyrus, then it must really be bad.

Your point about the time constraints is an excellent one. We should definitely entertain alternate procedures in the future for eliciting close readings, but your post does a great job of raising questions about the Cyropaedia that are still alive in everyone’s mind. Two questions I always come back to when thinking about Cyrus and Cyaxares are (1) what are Cyrus’ motives? and (2) what is the alternative?

On one, I think it’s fair to say that Xenophon allows for characters to have multiple motives. In Cyrus’ case I think he wants both the honor of being a successful leader but also to benefit people. The question then becomes “are the benefits of Cyrus’ leadership worth the honors (=privileges/resources/glory) Cyrus seems to want?” This is obviously not an easy balance to strike and the Cyaxares rivalry is one place where it almost fails. Plus, I think it’s fair to say that Xenophon does not push the tension as far as he might: what would have happened if Cyaxares had had a non-evil-but-still-less competent son to inherit the Medan throne? You might argue that the tension is pushed further in the Anabasis, though there, too, Xenophon seems to think that there’s no way for Cyrus the Younger to outmaneuver Artaxerxes than to make war on him. It is a kill-or-be-killed proposition. On two, I can’t really think of a better alternative from anywhere in Greek literature, so I like your choice of “outmaneuvered” over “manipulate” to describe Cyrus’ treatment of Cyaxares. The problem seems to be as old as the rivalry between Agamemnon and Achilles in Iliad I. Cyaxares seems to me to have a special case of anosognosia; he’s a leader who’s not really bad, but just not as aware of what’s going on around him as Cyrus is. I’m sure we can all think of people we’ve worked for, or studied under, who shared this condition, whether we were right in our diagnosis or just imagined we were. Compare this to what we might call Cyrus’ hyper- (and perhaps implausible) attentiveness (cf. Cyropaedia 8.7.7).